Raiders Adjust to '90s: Win Some, Lose Some

It isn't now, nor will it ever be, what Al Davis had in mind for his Raiders. But that's what he has after seven weeks this year.

And it's not a bad thing. He should be pretty pleased with it, embrace it, even. It doesn't hurt his team in relation to the rest of the NFL. For one thing, it's put the Raiders ahead of the team on the other side of the bay. Plus, if ever the Raiders wanted to be truly in the fraternity, they are today.

It can be argued, in fact, that Oakland is a perfect representative of today's NFL. They are what the league in the final year of this century is all about. For the Raiders and everyone else, "excellence" is way to much to ask for.

They're 4-3, very much in both the AFC playoff race and the West division race. All seven games of their games have been decided by seven points or fewer.

They've won twice on the road and lost once at home. They beat one team on the road that was in first place at the time (Buffalo), one week after losing at home to a team that hadn't won a game all year (Denver). They've narrowly lost twice on the road to teams currently leading their divisions (Green Bay and Seattle), and last week they barely won at home over a team with the second-worst record in football (New York Jets).

The Vikings, to whom the 49ers lost by 24 points, were beaten earlier by the Raiders in the same building. The Raiders have won on last-second drives and final-minute defensive stands -- and lost the same way.

Some people find this state of affairs thrilling, others a sorry indication of the numbing and dumbing of the sport. The reaction among various observers after last Sunday's game against the Jets was mixed -- either it was great that the Raiders were in another nail-biter that went down to the wire, or it was awful that they barely pulled one out on their home field against a 1-5 team.

The truth is that it's both. It's the way of the football world today. It's futile to love it or hate it; all you can do is get used to it. And if you're a Raiders supporter, you ride it until the bitter end.

And maybe even "bitter end" is too strong, even though the Raiders, as many teams have, may be going to their backup quarterback this week against the Dolphins.

Rich Gannon has been typical Rich Gannon -- decent enough to squeeze out four wins, not decent enough to squeeze out three more -- yet they might miss him terribly if the broken bone in his non-throwing wrist keeps him out. On the other hand, on Sunday it didn't look like the Jets, visitors to the AFC title game last year, missed Vinny Testaverde much.

Two Sundays before that, the Broncos suddenly didn't look so lost without John Elway and Terrell Davis. And last week, the Dolphins managed fine without Dan Marino; they'll probably be without him this week, too.

This is why Jon Gruden has been able to say, with a straight face, that the won-loss records mean nothing. He said it two weeks earlier after the loss to Denver at the Coliseum, before the trip to Buffalo. It sounded like Coaching Cliche No. 3,429, until the Raiders walked into Ralph Wilson Stadium and won. After the Jets game, he said it again.

"A lot of people speculated that the Jets were 1-5 and the Raiders were at home, and they should win this game," Gruden said. "But the players and the coaches who look at the film, they knew the Jets were a game away from the Super Bowl last year. They aren't injury-depleted -- they're missing their quarterback, but their defense was there. The same guys on defense are the same guys that really played well for them last year."

It went without saying that it was that defense that gave up 90 yards in the final 1:49 to cost the Jets -- with Rick Mirer -- a win they had in hand.

That's how level the field is now. A difference-maker helps -- Brett Favre in Week 1, for instance. But so many teams have lost such players, it simply comes down to grabbing that one break that seems to decide games every week. It's entirely possible, for instance, that the Raiders could not only survive losing Gannon, but even Tim Brown or Darrell Russell, in the way they could not survive losing Eric Allen last year.

It's just a matter of which team best compensates for its troubles. Or even which team ends up in the right stadium against the right team with the right players (and the right referee and replay monitor) at the right time.

The Raiders have done this well enough to win four of seven. A repeat of that the rest of the way, and they're looking at nine or 10 wins.

That should be good enough for this exasperating team's exasperating season, in the NFL's most exasperating year in a long, long time.